


Lullaby

by MontiMoth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MontiMoth/pseuds/MontiMoth
Summary: The dreams felt more detailed in some ways than the flashes of memories he was accustomed to. They felt less like retellings from the failable corners of his mind and more like he had been dropped into a pensive.
Relationships: Cedric Diggory/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> I have no recollection of writing this. Enjoy.

Harry Potter was not one to dwell on could have beens. Of all the minds and souls of this world, it might be expected of him to wonder about the possibilities of other lives he could have led, had the circumstances been different. However, Harry finds himself gaining no comfort in those moments of solitary contemplation; thinking about lives where he was not an orphan, where the world did not scrutinize his every movement, where he could be an average Hogwarts student getting into average trouble. It was not, he leveraged, a comfort because they were not his realities. Harry James Potter: the-boy-who-lived and savior of the wizarding world, would always also be Harry, who had blood on his hand and a weight on his heart. Thinking about alternate realities in which happiness was in more steady supply for him did nothing to alter the reality in which he lived. Alone in his plight, and guilty.  
The dreams started out as nothing more than images of his traumatic experiences; a way in which his brain could continually remind him that he was at fault for the blood that had already been split by innocence at his expense. Flashes of hateful, emerald light flared around his vision married to the screams of ghosts. The cool, damp air of the graveyard chilled him down to the bone. Sickeningly quiet, a snake glided through the grass towards them. Everything felt wrong. The raspy voice, older than eons called out into the misty air:

Kill the spare.

The spare. The word seared itself into Harry’s mind. Cedric Diggory would to history be always regarded as a spare. A casualty of war in the grander scheme of things. A number, a statistic… expendable, forgotten. This idea filled Harry with more guilt than he could grasp. His mind wandered to Amos Diggory’s face upon realizing that his son had returned from the maze dead. The utter grief that Harry could not begin to imagine coloring his usually chipper disposition, marring his features with agony. To Amos, Cedric was not a spare. To Cho, Cedric was not a spare. To so many, Cedric was far from a spare. He was placed in the focal point of the lives of so many people. He was well-liked, and rightfully so. Cedric Diggory was the epitome of what Hufflepuff house stood for. He was not a leftover, but a marriage of all the wonderful traits of all the houses. Courageous in his desire to represent his school and house in the face of danger, ambitious enough to take the steps towards glory, studious enough to push himself to be the best he could be. Above all of these things, Cedric Diggory was kind and just. Unendingly so. He wore the gentle waves of his personality on his sleeve for all to see. He humbly took the co-champion title with Harry not with distaste, but with pride. He stood up for his opponent, helped Harry in any way he could and never truly believed that Harry had any ill will against him, so showed Harry none. Cedric, despite every reason he had to run past Harry and take the cup for Hogwarts and Hufflepuff house and be the rightful Hogwarts Champion, offered the win to Harry. Willing and happily shared the win with Harry. In what way was he rewarded for his unending grace?  
Cedric Diggory was dead. He was murdered unceremoniously, pushes aside like garbage.  
This is what plays through Harry’s mind for months following the tournament. It filled him with guilt and with rage and with woe. Harry felt as though this is what he deserved. If he was to be tormented, at least Cedric would remain alive inside his memories. Cedric would not become a spare to Harry. It was no less than Harry believed he deserved and no less than he expected.  
The dreams that followed had not been expected, nor were they particularly welcome additions to his psyche. 

The dreams felt more detailed in some ways than the flashes of memories he was accustomed to. They felt less like retellings from the failable corners of his mind and more like he had been dropped into a pensive. Harry did not know if it was his or someone else's, but it felt organic and real. The air was warm and the light golden and radiant. The atmosphere of fondness and nostalgia weighed heavy but calming on his heart. It was a familiar sight, though Harry did not recognize this place or time.  
The house in which he stood was not one he knew. The carpet under his bare feel was plush and off white, the walls a faint yellow. He was stood in the living room beside a pleasantly worn earthy brown couch and a coffee table with piles of books and discarded mugs covering its surface. Harry bent down and looked at some of the titles. None of them were books he recognized or had ever read, but there was a healthy mix of wizarding and muggle books in the stacks. Many of them were on the topic of muggle technology and culture from a wizarding perspective, but they varied in topic from quidditch history to a very well loved copy of The Hobbit. On a large bookshelf near the window were several books about magical creatures, some of which had gathered a healthy coat of dust. The window was open, letting in the scent of lavender and dry earth carried on the breeze. The home felt grounded and cozy and loved, and Harry was content to just be in it for a moment. This lasted for only a moment though, as the familiar surge of guilt ran through his blood. He was supposed to be remembering, he was supposed to be punished with the memories of what he had done. He was decidedly not supposed to be enjoying a summer day in someone’s quaint home. He decided the only thing that could be done for it was to investigate.  
He looked out the window and to his shock saw the silhouette of a wanky, tall structure over the hill. He would know the odd architectural choices anywhere and smiled at the outline of the Burrow in the distance. It did not help him decipher where he was, but it somehow added to the homey feeling of the whole thing. He took another look around the room and noticed a slow and methodical movement in places he had not before. The pictures on the mantle smiled and waved at him, greeting him like an old friend. Others laughed or danced, forever caught in a moment of joy. There was the unmistakable buzz of a wizard’s home in this place. Harry also noticed the soft, melodic notes of a song he knew but could not quite place drifting from another room. The song was slow and sweet like honey, but it made Harry sad for an unknown reason. Harry moved towards it as if it were calling out to him.  
He found himself in a dining room. It wasn’t gaudy, just a small rounded table with two chairs pushed against another window. A green and red rug covered the dark wood floors. In the opposite corner, a grand piano sat, emanating the harmony. Not on its own, of course, because sat at the keys was none other than Cedric Diggory. The realization that this must be Amos’ home struck Harry as he remembered the Quidditch World Cup last year. Or was it last year, Harry thought. This place felt ageless, stuck in a moment in time, and Cedric looked older. His smooth skin was now showing signs of wear, the lines around his eyes where it wrinkles when he smiled now deeper and more omnipresent. His honey coloured hair now had faint streaks of grey within it. He was bent over the piano in placid concentration, a look of contentment on his face. His fingers slid effortlessly over the keys and the piano seems all too happy to oblige his requests. Harry had never known that Cedric had played piano, or even if he really did. This all could be a cruel figment of his mind. Cedric had yet to acknowledge Harry as present and Harry did not know if this Cedric could even see him, but something in his head supplied that Cedric was aware he was there. Something about him, about the song that he was weaving, felt like it was for Harry. Harry leaned against the frame of the doorway in which he was standing and allowed his eyes to slide closed as the light ebb and flow of the music dance around him, lulling him into a state of warm ease. Every note caressed his skin, like a gentle kiss. The sharp pang of loss ached within his heart, and simultaneously he felt more at home than he did anywhere else in the world and more out of place than he ever had. He was a ghost in Amos Diggory’s home. Amos Diggory, who now looked at Harry with detest. Amos, who in the world in which Harry lived, would never let him inside his home. Harry had not been invited to Cedric’s funeral because Amos believed that Harry had some part in his death, and now Harry was standing in Amos’ dining room, listening to his dead son playing the piano.  
Harry opened his eyes and squirmed a bit as that thought settled within him. The song was starting to slow and drift into its final notes. Harry planted his gaze at the back of Cedric’s head as the music final slowed to a gentle stop. He saw Cedric flex and stretch the muscles in his shoulders from being in a stooped over position for so long and he sighed softly. For the first time in this wordless interaction, Cedric acknowledged that Harry was there. He turned around to look at Harry, and Harry felt like he had been punched in the gut.  
So many things about Cedric’s face had changed with age, but much was the same. His soft, kind eyes were the same eyes that had met Harry’s when he had told Harry about the egg, the smile he gave was the same brilliantly warm one that he had given when he informed Harry about how he’d stuck up for him when Malfoy had distributed those Potter Stinks badges. His face was still covered in pinprick freckles than only accented his natural good looks. Something was different in this moment, however. Cedric was looking at Harry as though he was seeing him for the first time and the thousandth time at once. His eyes were soft with a warmth he had never seen in anyone until this moment. He looked like he was greeting an old friend and a best friend. Harry was taken aback by the intensity of the emotion in Cedric’s face as he smiled at Harry from across the room. Harry knew he had been here before, and he knew that he will never get to be here. This was not his reality, whatever it meant. This was not real. Cold realization coursed into his blood as he thought, Cedric will never get to be this old. In the waking world, Cedric Diggory will always be seventeen. A hopeful man, taken abruptly in his youth. Harry knew this. Yet at this moment, he allowed himself to think of what ifs. What if Cedric had been allowed to grow old? What had to have happened in this reality so that Harry would get the pleasure of seeing it?  
Cedric rose from the bench and strolled over to the archway where Harry had positioned himself, never breaking eye contact. He stopped a few inches from him, look down onto Harry’s face, smiling warmly. He was bathed in a late afternoon golden light, and Harry thought this is what it felt like to lay in the sun and feel the warmth on your face on a mild summer day. This was so familiar, ancient and habitual. Know and trodden but new. Cedric slowly raised his hand and placed it on Harry’s cheek. His hand felt calloused and warm and fit comfortably upon the curve of Harry’s cheek. Harry did not know if it was wrong to feel this way about a dream, a fictional unobtainable echo of a boy he had a hand in killing. He opted not to think about it as his eyes slid closed once more and he inhaled the lingering scent of lavender and ink that clung to Cedric.  
As quickly as this vision had rolled into his awareness, the warmth was gone. It was replaced by a familiar bone crushing chill. The sun was replaced by cloudy darkness, a perpetual fog. Cedric was no longer beside him, but several paces behind him looking confused. He was younger here, years erased from his face. He said something inaudible, probably about the task and portkeys, Harry had seen this enough times to know it made no difference. Where the Burrow was atop a hill now stood the decrepit, ominous church. Wormtail was approaching from the distance cradling his master like a baby. Cedric looked at him, confused. As Pettigrew grew closer his head exploded in pain as it had every night for months. It was agonizing and he buckled under it, as he always did. Harry wanted more than anything for it to be different, for him to have the willpower to fight through the pain. If he could just get up, maybe he could save Cedric. He could have warned him about where they were, who this was and that he was in danger. Harry could repay Cedric’s eternal kindness, could give him the chance to grow old. He may even get the chance to see it. To watch Cedric gray and wear down and slow and fall softly into him. But he couldn’t. His head was splitting in half from the pain. He couldn’t speak or move or do anything. He just sat there for the hundredth time as the cold voice of Voldemort rose into his awareness, “Kill the spare.”  
“Avada kedavra!”


End file.
